Trail Talk – 3/16/26

Good afternoon Troop 244!! I hope you are all doing well and that you had a great weekend. I hope you had a great Pi Day on Saturday!! Here we go with another week ahead of us! I had a chance to go over and tutor a friend’s daughter in math and then watch Michigan beat Wisconsin. Too bad, Michigan couldn’t win against Purdue on Sunday! That’s ok. It is time for March Madness now anyway! Fill out those brackets!

IMPORTANT NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR THIS WEEK:

EAGLE PROJECT HELP RILEY REINHART! – Eagle Scout Project- March 22

On Sunday, March 22nd from 8:30 to 11:30 Riley Reinhart will be conducting his Eagle Scout project at Pathfinder church. He needs volunteers to help with interviewing members of the church about their lives and advice. You will be provided with food, a brief interviewing lesson, and guiding questions to use during interviews. If you have any questions or would like to help out.

March Activity – ALLEGAN EVENT. Saturday, March 21st at 2:00 p.m. INDOOR CLIMBING and other attractions. RIGHT NOW I HAVE 18 PEOPLE SIGNED UP. WE HAVE TO HAVE A MINIMUM OF 20 TO MAKE IT HAPPEN! SIGN UP THIS TUESDAY! On  Saturday, March 21, we will all gather AT Allegan Event, and we have  reservation for 2 hours. We will be able to go in and climb, use their high ropes course and more from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. The cost for this event will be $24. If you wish to purchase food or use the arcade, you will need to bring your own money. Parents will have to turn in the Troop Permission Slip(attached), like normal but there is also an Allegan Event Waiver form that needs to be filled out. This is filled out online at this link: https://waiver.roller.app/AlleganEvent/?ubid=609BeYO-gU2iK93fcKk3EQ This is not negotiable. No waiver, no entry. Sign up for this on Tuesday! I have to have a minimum of 20 people signed up or I have to cancel this! SIGN UP NOW!!

ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY – April 11th at the car wash next to the Speedway gas station on the south side of Schoolcraft at 9:00 a.m. Sean Harrigan will be the leader in charge. To get this done quickly and efficiently though, we need scouts to show up. This typically only takes about 3 hours if we have enough scouts. This counts as service hours towards your rank advancements! Please wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Boots and hats. Bring gloves and a water bottle. We need everyone to attend. We DO need ADULT help to drive and escort the scouts for safety reasons. If we don’t have enough help, it may take longer than 3 hours and spill over into the afternoon! We need to make sure that we are able to clean both sides of the highway! The spring cleanup is usually the messiest of the cleanups after no cleaning all winter long! PLEASE, PLEASE come out and help on Saturday, April 11th! If there is inclement weather, then Saturday, April 18th will be the makeup day. The State of Michigan MDOT only gives us a 1-week window to do our cleanup. We need to make sure we do it if we want to continue to be of service to our community!

APRIL CAMPOUT – SPRINGFIELD, IL LINCOLN PILGRIMMAGE – The cost for this campout is going to be $60 as of right now per scout and $30 per adult. This campout takes place on April 24 – 26th and scouts will have to get out of school EARLY on Friday, April 24th. Because Springfield is a 5-hour drive, we leave around 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon in order to make it down there in a timely manner. This campout gives you a chance to learn a lot about our 16th President Abraham Lincoln. You have 2 options for activities you can do. 1. You can walk 18.9 miles in the steps of Abraham Lincoln from New Salem, IL to Springfield, IL through suburbs, farmland and other streets taking about 7 – 8 hours to do this. OR 2. You can visit the Presidential Museum in Springfield, IL in the morning and the village of New Salem as it was back in Abraham Lincoln’s day in the afternoon! Both are exciting opportunities. I have done the long hike 13 times and the museum 2 times! I loved both of them! This trip however has  A LOT OF PREPLANNING that has to go into it. I have to start signing scouts up for the activities NOW!! This is not something that is run by our troop. This is run by the Abraham Lincoln Council of Scouting America(which is part of the reason for the cost being higher), so a lot of things are out of my control. Because I have to submit information to the council, I need you to SIGN UP NOW!! This is an awesome opportunity and just so you know, this was always one of my favorite campouts as a scout and as an adult leader. There is just an atmosphere about it that is scout-like and I love it.

SUMMER CAMP 2026 June 21 – 27th, PIONEER SCOUT RESERVATION! We are looking at the cost this year of $450/scout and $210/adult.  I attended a Summer Camp webinar kickoff meeting the week before last and it made me get really pumped up for Summer Camp. It sounds like Pioneer is up to its usual which means an AWESOME week of camp! It is time that we all started thinking about it NOW. It is only 3 months away! Those 3 months are going to fly by! What can parents do NOW? They can sign their scouts up and start making payments. We need to have payments submitted to Pioneer by April 26th. What can scouts start doing now? Start thinking about your merit badges and what you want to take. We will have a Summer Camp Meeting in place of our normal troop meeting AFTER spring break, on April 7th! You will choose your merit badges at this meeting. We have to submit merit badges by April 26th to Pioneer). Please remember that every scout that goes to camp must have an updated Scouting America Physical form. The physical forms are only good for 1 year. So, start thinking about this now and get your scout their physical form filled out Parts A, B1, B2 AND C. Adults attending camps or high adventures are required to have medical forms filled out as well!

P.R.A.Y. Program (Programs of Religious Activities with Youth) as a pathway for Scouts to earn the (Protestant) Religious Emblem of Faith Award. This program is designed to help young people explore and or deepen their faith while connecting it to the values and experiences they gain through Scouting.

The P.R.A.Y. curriculum provides age-appropriate programs that encourage Scouts to explore their relationship with God, their church, their family, and their community. Through guided lessons, service, and discussions with mentors and church leaders, participants have the opportunity to grow both spiritually and personally.

Program Details:

• When: April 22, 29, May 6, 13.
• Location: Westwood United Methodist Church 538 Nichols Rd, Kalamazoo, MI 49006
• Time: 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
• Cost: Free

Who Should Attend: Scouts interested in working toward the Protestant Religious Emblem K-12th Grade.

WILDERNESS FIRST AID TRAINING –For those of you that expressed interest, we will be holding it on May 2nd/3rd at Chris Brake’s house: 2723 Vanderbilt Ave. Portage, MI  49024. The cost for the course is $80. We will start at 8:00 am each day.

Meat Stick Fundraiser – MEAT STICKS! MEAT STICKS! Pick up your meat sticks to take out and sell at the troop meeting. This year, in order to get most of the fundraiser, we are selling the meat sticks at a price of 2 for $3 instead of $1 apiece. This helps us to make more money overall for each scout’s individual scout account. You can see Brandon Beery at the troop meetings to get meat sticks to sell and to turn in the money from your sales!

Scouting America PHYSICAL FORMS! – Every Scout and Leader that goes to summer camp, Swampbase, Pictured Rocks or the mini-high adventure MUST have an up-to-date SCOUT PHYSICAL FORM with all parts of the form filled out, Part A, B1, B2 and C. You must get a new one for this year. No Form, No Trip. WE NEED ALL PHYSICAL FORMS TURNED IN BY MAY 1ST.

Pictured Rocks Backpacking Trip – Information and preparation meeting on SUNDAY MARCH 22ND AT 2:30 P.M. in the Fellowship Hall. That is NEXT SUNDAY AFTERNOON! The trip itself is July 9 – 15th Cost is $300 due by June 15th. Still looking for a second female adult leader if possible!

SWAMPBASE – Please stay up to date on all information for this trip.  Mike King held an information meeting two weeks ago and also sent the information out over email to the group going to SwampBase. Make sure you consult all of that, so you keep up with what is going on! ALSO, EVERY SWAMPBASE participant will need to have a Scouting American Physical Form filled out in order to participate. This includes ALL parts, Part A, B1, B2 and C. Make sure you take care of this sooner rather than later! Please continue to look for information from your trip leader, Mike King!

Troop 244 Payment Portal – Zeffy. Our Zeffy page remains open for you to make payments or by troop merch! Wanna pay for the Campout, Pictured Rocks, SwampBase, Registration, etc. Go to the following link: http://bit.ly/pay244

Troop Swag/Merch you can click on this link: http://bit.ly/244swag

Scoutmaster Minute – Teamwork. I know I have written about being a part of a team and teamwork in the past, but I got to thinking about this again this weekend. It was actually a TV show of all things that made me think about this. I won’t tell you what TV show, for fear of embarrassment, but it was a show where two doctors did a groundbreaking procedure on a patient but because they had only done it once before, one of the doctors was a little hesitant to do it again. However, in the show, it came to be that they had to end up doing the procedure again, the same two doctors, and were successful. One of the doctors said to the other…”we’re a team…you and me. If we keep doing this procedure together, we could save a lot of lives” and that got me to thinking about how important teamwork really is. In my current, day to day, job as a teacher I am part of several teams but the most important team I am a part of involves myself and 1 other teacher. We “co-teach” our 8th grade Math and Pre-Algebra classes together. When we first started doing this, I was extremely hesitant. I had co-taught one other time in my career, during my 1st year of teaching, and it was a disaster. However, about 4 years ago, my teaching partner and I started teaching together and it has turned out to be a great experience. In fact, many of the staff just now refer to as one person. We are in sync with each other and with how we work with our students. I also believe, wholeheartedly, that our students have benefited from this partnership as well. Not only do these students have 1 teacher to get help from, but they have 2!! When you have 150 students total but have 2 teachers to help students out, you can help a lot more students than a single teacher can alone. When we teach our classes, I do the main instruction, while my partner monitors student work and provides feedback. Our students are getting the benefit of two teachers every day. My partner and I have actually become one of the “model” co-teaching relationships in our school. However, remember, I was hesitant to do this. One thing that I realized as I was pondering teamwork is that in order to be an effective member of a team, you have to be willing and able to be a part of that team. It doesn’t mean, necessarily, leading the way, but working in tandem with the other person or people. You have to have an open mind about new ideas, while at the same time, recognizing the experience that every team member brings to the table. Communication is incredibly important amongst a team. If you don’t communicate, you fail. Things go unsaid, walls go up, effectiveness breaks down. I am grateful that scouting taught me how to be a part of a team. We are all parts of teams, in our everyday lives and we are often parts of several different teams. Scouting, since our troop, our patrols, our adult leadership, are all teams, can be a way to teach us what it truly means to be a part of our team. We can then carry that on into our lives outside of scouting. I know I have. Have you?

“What Troop Does More!!” – 244!!!